Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Where do the materials we need come from?

30 minutes

Find Out: Resource extraction game

20 minutes

Take Action: The impacts of mining

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

understand resource scarcity, mining and its environmental impacts as well as the value of rare, non-renewable materials, and the importance of respecting them
investigate the mining process, from exploration and surveying to transportation.

Success criteria

Students can:

outline where the materials used in mobile phones come from and how they are obtained
describe the environmental impacts caused by extracting resources
work collaboratively to solve problems.

Tune In: Where do the materials we need come from?

Step 1

Watch the following video with your students which shows what materials are used to create mobile phones. Encourage students to pay attention to the names of the materials and their functions, and discuss these at the conclusion of the video.

MobileMuster - What’s Inside Your Phone (https://vimeo.com/263456775)

If you completed the previous lesson in this unit, What’s inside your smartphone?, ask students to identify the materials used in the manufacture of mobile phones and brainstorm as a class any information they can remember about them before watching the video first. You might like to then watch the video to check their understanding.

Step 2

Brainstorm with your students where these materials come from and how we get enough to make the billions of mobile phones in use all around the world.

Find Out: Resource extraction game

Preparation

In this section, students will simulate mining by digging up items representing the materials in a mobile phone. They will earn points for the different materials they uncover but will be heavily penalised at the end for any damage to the environment. This activity could be carried out either outside in the sandpit, or inside by embedding the materials in clay, plasticine or sandtrays. Set up your ‘mines’ prior to the lesson by following the instructions in the Teacher Content Information.

This lesson and others in the unit have been planned using gamification. Gamification is when we use game-design elements (e.g. points, leader-boards and teammates) and game principles in non-game contexts. Applying game elements to a set of activities and processes to solve problems improves student engagement, productivity and learning.

Step 1

Explain to your class that they are going to be exploring how these materials are acquired through mining. They will simulate mining by digging up items representing the materials in a mobile phone. They will earn points for the different materials they uncover but will be heavily penalised at the end for any damage to the environment.

We recommend you don’t tell students beforehand about the penalties for environmental damage. Tell them that they will receive points for the materials they recover, and only introduce the environmental penalties at the end, to reframe the mining simulation and encourage students to reflect on the different values involved in the mining process (i.e. short-term commercial interests vs long-term environmental degradation).

Introduce the aim and constraints of the Resource Extraction Game to your class:

Aim

To explore an area for the materials needed in mobile phones, then to extract them and transport them to the factory while minimising damage to the environment.
Be sure to include the note about minimising damage to the environment, but don’t make a huge deal about it. Leave it as an understated point to refer back to at the end, especially for students who are frustrated by the twist - after all, you warned them to be careful!

Constraints

Each group should have approximately four people.
Each person in the group will have a role: one exploration geologist, two miners and one truck driver.
Each group will be awarded points for the total amount of materials they transport to their factory in the time allowed. These points will be counted at the end.A minimum of 10 minutes is recommended, but you can modify this time to fit your schedule and the degree of student engagement.

Step 2

Briefly explain how geologists survey, explore and mine for minerals using pages 4-11 of this picture storybook called When We Mine (oresomeresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Publication-When-we-Mine-1.pdf). If you want to go a little more deeply into this explanation use the information included in the Teacher Content Information to help guide your discussion.

Step 3

Allocate your students into groups of four and allow them to assign a role to each member. Show the students what items they will be looking for in their designated ‘mining’ area and which material each item symbolises (coins, metal strips, plastic, etc.).

For example, depending on what items you are able to source, 5c coins might represent silver, $1 coins might represent gold and rocks might represent lithium. Each different material has a different score associated with it which students will find out after they mine.

Explain that these materials would usually be found in different locations to each other but to simplify things for the game they are going to mine them all in one location.

Step 4

Explain the rules of the game to your students and run the activity for at least 10 minutes.

Exploration drilling will be carried out by the ‘exploration geologist’ by inserting the poles/pipes/straws into the ground to locate materials. This could occur several times.
Once a material is located, the two ‘miners’ in the group will dig for the material using the digging tools. As the miners dig they should put the sand that is dug out (excavated) into the closest bucket/container, and their mined material into the truck.
Once the material they are mining for is extracted, the ‘truck driver’ will transport it to the factory. Draw up a score sheet on the board with each group's name and encourage students to make a mark on the board for each trip they make.

Team A	I I I
Team B	I I I I
Team C	I I

Things to consider:

As a class, decide how frequently each trip needs to be done before the game starts (e.g. after each material is extracted OR when the ‘truck’ is full).
The exploration geologist needs to wait until the truck driver returns before they can start to drill again.
You could deduct points if you notice any cheating, but make sure you warn students up front that this will occur. This process will then be repeated until the time is up.
You might like to discuss why we do this step first rather than just mining straight away (i.e. to avoid unnecessary environmental destruction and cost if there isn’t any or if there is very little of the resource to be mined in the area).

Step 5

Once the allocated time is finished, ensure each group stops work immediately. Then invite each group to tally up the amount of each material they found and record it into the table on the Student Worksheet.

Collect all the worksheets and use the points system below to work out the initial score (income) for each group.

Material	Points	Material	Points
Palladium	10	Tungsten	5
Gold	9	Lithium	4
Platinum	8	Cooper	3
Silver	7	Bauxite/Aluminium	2
Neodymium	6	Silica	1

Students could be provided with the points system to work out their own scores before announcing their total to the teacher.

Ask your students why the different materials might have been given these scores and explain that more points have been awarded for the materials that have the highest market value (based on May 2024 prices), and fewer points have been awarded for the materials with the lowest value.

Take Action: The impacts of mining

Step 1

As a class, take a look at each group’s ‘mine’ and the bucket containing the excavated earth (sand, clay or plasticine). What do they look like now? Did the groups that had higher scores have more destruction?

Step 2

At this stage, introduce the twist to your students. Explain that by tearing up the earth to get at the resources, they’ve ruined the topsoil, and now the people who lived on that land won’t be able to grow food. Assign penalties based on the amount of environmental disruption and degradation.

No damage (team refused to mine): +5000 points, as they are the only ones still able to produce food.
Minor damage (very tidy mine site and very little excavated material): -1000 points (after all, they did decide to mine).
Moderate damage (a bit untidy with moderate excavated material): -2000 points.
Heavy damage (a very untidy mine site with a lot dug away from the surface, excavated material): -3000 points.
Extreme damage (the mine site is unrecognisable or spread all over the learning space): -4000 points.
Missing evidence of land or mine: -5000 points.

You may want students to assign the penalty in the space on their Student Worksheet, separate to the points gained from the resources. This way, students have a visual representation of the resources gained in contrast to the environmental damage done.

You can also use this opportunity to reflect on the nature of greed. Were students competing with each other to get the most points? How did they express that competitive drive? Were they careless in transporting their materials? Were they aggressive in how they mined the land? Is winning always worth the cost? How does the cost of their victory affect its value?

Step 3

Ask students to consider:

If this was a real mine, what would it mean for the local environment? What could be done with the mine site now?

Also, discuss the number of trips made by each truck. How might these trips impact the environment? How could we reduce this impact?

Deduct ten points for each trip made to cover the cost of fuel and environmental impact.

Step 4

Based on the scores since the deductions, announce the runners-up and the winning team before asking students to help you pack away the material from the activity. All the teams should end up with a negative score – use this opportunity to reflect again on what winning and losing actually means in the context of mining.

You might want to offer a couple of hundred extra points as a sweetener to students for their work tidying up after the game. Frame these points as the environmental benefits of regeneration, of looking to revive the land rather than just stripping it. Make sure all teams still end up with a negative score at the end of the exercise – this outcome reflects the fact that mining is always an environmentally damaging process. The short-term financial benefits of mining can never make up for the long-term damage done to the environment.

Step 5

Invite students to reflect on what they have learnt in this lesson about how our mobile phones are manufactured – especially about how we could lessen demand for these resources in the future. What has this lesson made them think about this process?

Speak with students about the importance of upgrading our mobile phones only when we really need to, having phones repaired instead of replaced and recycling old phones so the resources in them can be used again.

Opportunity for Extension

Opportunity for Learning Support

Group students in a way that allows peer support where needed.
Ensure students have a role in the resource extraction game that suits their temperament or individual needs.

Reflection

Invite students to individually complete this 3,2,1 activity on their Student Worksheet:

3 recalls - What did you learn from this lesson?
2 insights - How is this information relevant to you, society or the environment?
1 question - What do you still want to know?

The Impacts of Mining: Resource Extraction Game

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Summary

Learning intentions:

Students will...

Success criteria:

Students can...

Lesson Guides and Printables

Lesson Details

Skills

Curriculum Mapping

Resources Required

UN Sustainable Development Goals

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